Prepare your heart for Sunday by looking through these suggestions that will assist you in making the most of our time together.

You will find suggestions for thinking more critically through the passage, meditating more intently on the text, and tangibly putting scripture to action in your personal life, and in our corporate body.

Carefully Think

• Read through Matthew 27:57-66. Three groups are emphasized: Joseph of Arimethea, the women watching, and Pilate and the Jews. What is being emphasized in the burial of Jesus with these three groups?
• List all you learn about Joseph. What is the importance of these details?
• Which women are mentioned? In the context of this chapter, why is this significant?
• When are the Chief Priests and Pharisees going to Pilate? What is significant about the timing of their gathering with Pilate?
• How much did the Chief Priests and Pharisees know about Jesus' own prediction regarding his death and resurrection?
• In what ways do Pilate and the Jews seeks to secure Jesus' tomb? Why are they so intent on the security of the tomb?

Prayerfully Meditate

• What do you learn about the discipleship of Joseph and the women from this passage? What does their actions say about their value of Jesus?
• How do the Jews describe Jesus and what does it reveal about their value of Jesus?
• What does this passage reveal about what Pilate thinks of Jesus?
• How is this account in the record of Jesus' death and resurrection essential to the truthfulness of the gospel message? 
• What do the details of this passage contribute to the kind of confidence we should have in the gospel?

Intentionally Act

• Consider the Growth Group questions in thinking through your personal application of the truths of this passage. Make it a point to discuss these applications with people in your Growth Group.
• Pray that the Word would be preached from our pulpit, to gain understanding with a spirit of wisdom and revelation, that we are not only convicted of seeing our sin, but even more we would repent and see a perfect and holy God more glorious than all and seek to worship him in truth and love.
• Pray for those who will be leading our gathering this week: Dawson Bryant, music; Brandon Ferguson, Elders' prayer and Scripture reading; Bret Capranica, teaching.
• Prepare for our gathering on Sunday by reading through the lyrics of the songs and reflect on them, so that you can focus on edifying one another through song and give praise to the King.

Growth Groups

Here are a few general questions to consider about how this account should impact our thinking.

• How does this account impact your confidence in the resurrection of Jesus?
• Why is this passage so essential to the Christian message?
• Why is such confidence in the reality of the death of Jesus essential to true confidence in Jesus?
• Where does your confidence in trusting Jesus in life tend to be small? Why? What is lacking in Jesus for you not to trust him?
• How does this passage enhance your understanding of the power of God? Why is that important in defining and expressing true faith?
• What more would God need to do to clearly display that Jesus was actually dead, and so highlight the consequent power of the resurrection? Why don't people then believe the resurrection when the evidence of his death and burial are so detailed and verified by multiple eyewitnesses?
• Why is this element of Jesus' death and resurrection essential to redemption from sin?
• How could this passage assist you in praying for and talking with non-Christians about Jesus' death and resurrection
• How could this passage encourage you to pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ?

Songs for Sunday

• Glory Be to God (Video)
• Rejoice, the Lord Is King
• Beneath the Cross (Video)
• Just As I Am (Video)
• My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less (Video)

Lyrics

Lyrics Morning Gathering - May 15, 2016 by Summit Woods Baptist Church